In today’s constantly-updating list of companies that have been hacked, it’s natural for us, as consumers, to be a little apprehensive about our credit cards, debit cards, and bank accounts. Thankfully, there are services like BillGuard that protect our information and alert us to potentially questionable charges.

BillGuard is a free service, designed to solve the problem of overlooking fraudulent charges, hidden fees, and billing errors on credit card accounts. It scans and analyzes your card transactions and compares them with transactions that other users have flagged as questionable. If a questionable charge appears on your account, they’ll send you an alert.

Extreme gambling led Arthur Jones to live a life on the lam. The former commodities broker said goodbye to his wife of 20 years back in 1979, claiming he was headed to a business meeting. But 40-year-old Jones never returned home. Seven years later, he was declared dead.

Last week, at age 72, Jones was discovered working as a sports book writer in Las Vegas and arrested.

Booz Allen Hamilton, an American consulting firm, does a lot of work for the Pentagon. Anonymous recently hacked their servers, which contained a lot of military business, and today, they leaked the information.

Calling today “Military Meltdown Monday,” the leak includes 90,000 logins of military personnel, including people from US CENTCOM, SOCOM, the Marine Corps, Air Force facilities, Homeland Security, State Department staff, and private sector contractors. The information leaked may include e-mail exchanges between any of those personnel and Booz Allen Hamilton’s current executives.

Citigroup announced that one percent of its credit card accounts have been accessed by hackers. The news, they say, was brought to their attention by “routine monitoring.” Citigroup has 21 million account holders, which means that 1% is as many as 210,000 accounts.

According to Financial Times, names, account numbers, and addresses were viewed. However, Citi says that Social Security numbers, birth dates, card expiration dates and security codes were not compromised. In a statement printed by Financial Times, Citigroup says, “a computer breach may have given hackers access to the data of hundreds of thousands of bank card customers.” They add that the hacking was discovered “in early May.”

Rumors have been spreading around that hackers who took down the PlayStation Network have stolen 2.2 million credit card numbers and have put the database on sale.

Kevin Stevens, a senior researcher at security firm Trend Micro told the New York Times that he has seen discussions on hacker forums about the supposedly stolen numbers. Hackers are claiming to have a copy of the database and are asking for a pice “upwards of $100,000.”

“It is not a rumor, it was a conversation on a criminal forum,” Stevens tweeted.

The Federal Trade Commission's motto for identity theft is "Deter, Detect, Defend". While everyone is at risk, residents of some states are more susceptible. While you may predict that the states with the largest populations have the most identity theft complaints, there are several smaller states that round out the Top 10.

2010 experienced a 33% increase in identity theft over 2009 and the Better Business Bureau is warning that ATM skimming is a growing problem. One in five Americans have fallen victim to this category of fraud, and in some parts of the country, you’re now more likely to be scammed while making withdrawals than being a victim of a direct, physical crime.

“The devices have become more sophisticated over time,” says Don Carroll of the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force. He says technology may be contributing to the increase in criminal activity.

The best way to thwart identity thieves is to learn the tactics they use so you can be more cautious at the cash dispenser. Some scammers stick a magnetic stripe reader (the skimmer) over top of the card slot, while placing a fake number pad as well. They look so legit that many people don’t notice a difference. The machine functions normally, you walk away with your cash, and the con just captured your card information and your PIN number.

If a video game company uses your likeness and life story without compensating you, would you call it identity theft? Michael "Shagg" Washington is, in addition to fraud and copyright infringement in his lawsuit with Rockstar Games over the character CJ in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Cypress Hill fans may be familiar with Washington as one of the hip hop group's backup singers. He claims that the main character in the 2004 GTA San Andreas video game not only looks like him but also lives his life story. Why did it take him so long to recognize the resemblance? He doesn't play video games. It wasn't until this past summer that his nephew noticed and notified him.

This eye-opening CBS report shows how information in copy machines built since 2002 is saved on the machine's hard drive and anyone with half-a-brain (after watching this report) can steal the information within.

Posing serious security concerns, everything from bank statements, social security numbers, mortages and even asses have been scanned by one of these babies. As you can see in the report, even police departments offload these old copiers. Some copies even get sold to foreign companies. I am sure used copier sales have skyrocketed after this report. So think twice about copying ANYTHING.

"This year marks the 50th anniversary of the good, old-fashioned copy machine. But, as Armen Keteyian reports, advanced technology has opened a dangerous hole in data security."